Thursday, November 6, 2014

Study shows why cliques thrive in some schools more than in others

Go to almost any
American high school and the elements of teen social networks become quickly
apparent: the cliques, the pecking orders, and the varying degrees of
self-segregation by race, age, gender, and social status.

For years, sociologists have identified seemingly universal
human instincts that spur this kind of sorting. These include the desires for
familiarity and certainty; for control and dominance; and for security and
support.

But as ubiquitous as those instincts are, students in some
schools form more cliquish, hierarchical, and segregated social structures than
in others. What accounts for the variation?

It turns out that the organizational setting of a school
itself, its "network ecology," has a big impact. Schools that offer
students more choice -- more elective courses, more ways to complete requirements,
a bigger range of potential friends, more freedom to select seats in a
classroom -- are more likely to be rank ordered, cliquish, and segregated by
race, age, gender, and social status.

By contrast, pecking orders, cliques, and self-segregation
are less prevalent at schools and in classrooms that limit social choices and
prescribe formats of interaction. Smaller schools inherently offer a smaller
choice of potential friends, so the "cost" of excluding people from a
social group is higher. In addition, structured classrooms guide student
interactions in prescribed routes and encourage students to interact on the
basis of schoolwork rather than on the basis of their external social lives.

Those are among the conclusions of a new American
Sociological Review study, "Network Ecology and Adolescent Social
Structure," published online today and scheduled to appear in the December
print edition of the journal. The lead author is Daniel A. McFarland, a
professor of education at Stanford Graduate School of Education.

"Educators often suspect that the social world of
adolescents is beyond their reach and out of their control, but that's not
really so," McFarland said. "They have leverage, because the schools
are indirectly shaping conditions in these societies."

The study draws on an analysis of two datasets about
friendships, one of which considers friendships at the classroom level and the
other at the school level. At the classroom level, the researchers tapped into
detailed data of friendships and social interactions compiled by McFarland at
two very different high schools over a two-semester period. The school-level
data came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

The researchers found that large schools tend to accentuate
the quest by adolescents for friends who are similar to themselves, an instinct
that sociologists call "homophily." Bigger schools offer a broader
range of potential friends, as well as greater exposure to people who are
different. It's a mixture of freedom and uncertainty that spurs students to
cluster by race, gender, age, and social status. But a school's size is only
one factor. The researchers also found that a school's openness to choice spurs
cliques and social-status hierarchies as well.

In schools with a strong focus on academics, where teachers
have a hand in setting the pace and controlling classroom interactions,
teenagers are less likely to form friendships based on social attitudes
imported from outside the school. Instead, friendships are more likely to develop
out of shared school activities and similar intellectual interests.

As the researchers put it, a positive educational climate
strengthens the school's "system membrane" and makes it more
impervious to "external" criteria for friendship such as race or social
status. In other words, a more rigid school setting can sometimes promote more
open-mindedness in making friends -- a potentially valuable quality in
adulthood.

McFarland cautioned that the study doesn't mean that
students are necessarily better off in small schools with less choice. For one
thing, the practice of putting students on particular tracks based on their
apparent academic prowess often has the side effect of segregating students
according to race. A bigger and more diverse student population may well foster
self-segregation, but a smaller and more elite school is almost inherently more
segregated in the first place.

Beyond that, the likely influence of these structural
topographies may be complicated and contradictory. Different kinds of students
are likely to thrive in settings with different blends of supervision, freedom,
and uncertainty.

"We're not proposing that we all go to a forced
boarding-school model,'' he said. "The truth is that we are not sure which
kind of adolescent society is best for youth social development, let alone what
position in them is best."

The main goal of this study, he continued, was to shed light
on how a school's environment affects the shape of adolescent social networks.
The next round of studies, he said, will look at which kinds of social networks
and social networking positions in them best help adolescents prepare for
adulthood.

"There likely isn't a simple answer," McFarland
said. "What may work well for a shy child may not work well for a
gregarious one, and neither solution may prepare them well for the realities of
adulthood. We just need to study it and see."